


You Can't Go Home Again

by stilesune



Series: Lost In The Echo [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Language, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Stiles is a badass cop like his dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 20:46:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilesune/pseuds/stilesune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’d been ten years since Stiles had been in Beacon Hills. He’d left when he was eighteen for college and hadn’t returned since. He hadn’t had any intention of ever returning home. Not with the way things were when he left. But fate left him with no choice. Returning to Beacon Hills to bury his father next to his mother before he was even thirty was not how Stiles imagined having to do it. </p>
<p>(Previously posted, revised to make a series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Go Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted in December but I decided to write a sequel to it, so I went back and was unhappy with the timeline for that matching up with what I wanted to do for the sequel. So I changed some of the details, added more things (including Isaac, Erica, and Boyd), and now I'm posting it again. :)

It’d been ten years since Stiles had been in Beacon Hills. He’d left when he was eighteen for college and hadn’t returned since. He hadn’t had any intention of ever returning home. Not with the way things were when he left. But fate left him with no choice. 

Returning to Beacon Hills to bury his father next to his mother before he was even thirty was not how Stiles imagined having to do it. Return, obviously, not say goodbye to his dad. The Sheriff had been let in on the werewolf secret in the town and it had cost him his life. He remembered being a senior at college and having his father call to rant and rave about the lies, the secrets. He wasn’t at all surprised when the lawman showed up the next day just to whack him upside the head and then hug him until his body tingled from the pressure.

He could feel that tightness, that similar pressure, settling in his bones again as he was surrounded by people crying, offering him their deepest condolences like it meant anything. Like it meant shit that they were sorry when all they’d do was go home with a wet click of their tongue and ‘it’s such a shame’ before they forgot all about the grief after their casserole dish was returned. Stiles would carry the grief with him for the rest of his life. 

Scott had showed up with Allison by his side, and both had swept him up in a hug that he couldn’t even feel. All he felt was a soul crushing emptiness knowing that he had no more family. He’d abandoned the pack – _you weren’t even part of the pack_ , his brain tried to snidely remind him – for his own betterment and he highly doubted that he’d be let back to town, technically an Alpha’s territory, with open arms. 

Not after how he’d left. He’d all but renounced the werewolves, Scott included, in order to be able to leave for school. His father had worked hard to pay for his college and he wasn’t going to spit on that. Plus, he wanted to go to school where his mother had, where she and his father had met, to carry on the spirit. His father had been proud and insisted that his mother would’ve been too as he met him in the aisles after graduation.

Jackson, Lydia, and Danny eventually showed up together as well, Lydia offering her own stunted apologies with Jackson stiffly echoing. Danny was the only one to actually show any emotion that wasn’t awkward, his eyes shimmering as he went into a long speech about how amazing the Sheriff was, how he’d protected them, saved them.  
Stiles tried hard not to comment about how they obviously hadn’t repaid the favor in kind to the Sheriff, or they wouldn’t be at his wake.

Isaac, Erica, and Boyd followed shortly thereafter, bringing up the rear to the Hale pack. Their attempts at apologies fell on ears that wished they were deaf as Stiles walked away before they could even finish the insulting _sorry_. He wanted to hate all of them, managed to on some level even. 

Hated them for having his father for the last ten years of his absence. For having him in a way that Stiles always wanted to but was too afraid of making him a target. Hated them for the pictures he saw on the mantle of Christmases and birthdays that screamed pack, screamed family.

He hated them. Especially the dark, hulking figure that seemed to be at the epicenter of each photograph. 

He was busy cleaning up after the entire department, half the town, and a pack of wolves three hours later, when the last person he wanted – the same hulking shadow in the taunting pictures – to see seemed to materialize in the living room within the span of him taking a bag into the kitchen and returning.

“Get out.” Stiles said, his tone hollow as he stuffed paper plates and plastic silverware into the garbage bag.

“I...”

“If you say you’re sorry, I’ll put a bullet in your skull.” Stiles interrupted Derek angrily, fist tightening around the trash bag until he felt his blunt nails biting into his palm. He wished he had his standard issue attached to his hip for the familiar reassurance, that the department hadn’t already removed the Sheriff’s service weapons from his house. 

Derek’s fists clenched as well, his jaw tightening and his eyes flashing red as he tried to push down his anger at the threat. “I’ll let that one slide given your circumstances. But don’t mistake that for a recurring kindness.”

“I don’t expect any sort of kindness from you. I expect an abrasive asshole who’s all bluster and BS. You were for two years before I left, I don’t expect it to have changed in the last ten.” Stiles had barely finished speaking before he was pressed up against the wall, a forearm pressed solidly against his throat.

“You think some time away from home and a college degree gives you the right to talk to me like that without consequence? Congratulations on your balls finally dropping, but don’t think for one second that you can come into my territory and speak to me that way.” Derek threatened through gritted teeth, his eyes darting along Stiles’ face as the red faded.

“From what I remember in that last year, you liked it when I talked back to you. You got off on it.” Stiles challenged, daring Derek to say anything different about the late nights after pack meetings, ones Stiles probably shouldn’t have been at seeing as he _wasn’t_ pack.

Derek backed off with a growl, his eyes narrowing as he tried to relax his tense body. He couldn’t be near Stiles without his head and his wolf warring on what the best way to deal with the kid was. His head wanted to tear off Stiles’ while his wolf wanted to ravage him in a completely different way. It was his undoing. “Contrary to what you believe, some things _have_ changed. Things like that.”

But both of them knew in that moment that Derek hadn’t just shown up to give condolences or to apologize for not protecting Stiles’ father like he should’ve. They both knew that Derek was there because he’d missed Stiles (not that he’d ever admit it aloud or anything) and Stiles knew he wasn’t kicking Derek out because he needed someone. Someone who knew how to comfort Stiles, to make him forget for a little while. It wouldn’t be loving or sweet or even pretty. But it’d be enough.


End file.
